In which I talk about PAYING ATTENTION TO THE WORDS ON THE PAGE and HAVE AN AWESOME GOLD COAT AND TONY STARK SUNGLASSES!
Wednesday, April 1, 2020
14 comments:
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Sounds very interesting
ReplyDeleteI get why Brook's isn't as exciting as all the other philosophers in the packet but yet his idea on how poetry or works of art should be viewed is so crucial because it's very easy to just look at the art and not so much of what the words are trying to say. Btw I just wanted to ask if you received my essay?
ReplyDeleteits very easy to throw the art away for the MEANING, and honestly a lot of teachers ask students to do just that — because they are more comfortable talking about what the characters should have done instead of what the WRITER DID.
DeleteIt doesn’t look like I did get your essay — maybe resend it?
I agree with this especially the line "we demand logical coherences where they are sometimes irrelevant." I feel like sometimes we are taught to focus on finding a meaning or idea that it takes away from the art and what really matters. And the WALL-E example is what I wrote about and it proves Brook's point that the authors or history outside the art can take away from what's really relevant.
ReplyDelete-Delaney Murray
DeleteYou are totally right! I am glad you reminded me you were the one who wrote about Wall-E! Thanks for that great example!
DeleteQuestion: So I understood the concept of form and the examples you and the text gave. but what confused me in a sense is the ballet example. That when we see a ballet or a form of dance you go to see it for the story the body is telling. But is the work of art the dance itself or the music. because inst what the point of the art of dancing is to tell the story of the music. So are we taking away from the real story and words of the music to interpret into our own adaptation of what it really means.?
ReplyDeleteBallet has a story but that is not why you go. The reason you know this is because no one thinks a wikipedia summary of the story of the ballet is as good as seeing the ballet in person. You go to the ballet because as Brooks would say you cannot seperate the experience of seeing it from the story that is being told — they are linked in a way that people who read summaries of novels online instead of the novels do not understand. Your interpretation should be of the actual experience, not a summary of the experience — which seems obvious but lots of people including most of my students turn in papers that appear to be about the wikipedia summary of the work of art and not the work of art — AND SO DO A LOT OF PROFESSORS I WORK WITH
DeleteJust a question:
ReplyDeleteSo for example- if I were to write about a movie using this philosopher- am I allowed to talk about "deeper meaning" and symbolism through the movie as long as i'm not relating it to the life of the director of the movie?
Or for example, with the "brave as a lion" example you gave- I'm supposed to be thinking about WHY lions are chosen as the example of a brave animal as opposed to something else. Suppose i've only ever seen a drawing of a lion once in my life or something. Am I allowed to look up information about a lion?
It's confusing to me because Brooks sounds an awful lot like Oscar Wilde? Like the technique of doing something is more valuable than "what it means".
Or like.... in Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock how at some point in the poem, the speaker describes the smog that falls over the city like a cat. Am i supposed to be focusing solely on how pretty it sounds? or am i supposed to be focusing on why the speaker (not the author, but the character in the poem) chose to describe fog as a cat. This is coming out really confusing but basically is he saying "you're not allowed to do external research on a poem, just enjoy the poem for what it is" type of thing or is he specifically like "i don't care who wrote this, everything else is fair game to research tho"
Your first example is correct — for brooks the “deeper meaning” is what the Words and Images and Sound is doing not what the director or creator is doing. He thinks to relate it to the director would be limiting and distracting. You are allowed to look up whatever you want, but instead of asking “why do lions matter to the person who created the poem” you should ask “how does the lion metaphor relate to other metaphors in the poem”. It is confusing but you are right that it has some connections to Oscar Wilde, who also wanted you to just spend time with the art and not get distracted by biography, or history or whatever. Also you are correct about focusing on the SPEAKER not the AUTHOR for the cat metaphor. Your last comment is perfect — you say you are confused but I actually think you understand this really well. The “i dont care who wrote this” is the central point.
DeleteThe coat and sunglasses make the video, this is so interesting. Also being focusing on the actual art... so good love the concept.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteHello, not sure if my previous comment failed to be posted- I tried on my phone previously but here we go again: I think it's a genius idea for general art analysis/appreciation of art to remove who the artist is. For writing and poems, this would make readers, students, people of different nationalities and ethnicities less biased and more cognizant of the universality of language and art. Furthermore, for films, the experience of the film has to be more self-contained and apparent, not reliant on the director or the external contextual factors. (For example, people would be more willing to forgive Tarantino for pushing it with racial slurs in his own film, but what if there were no credits and no prior knowledge it was a film directed by Tarantino himself? People would be less forgiving- this is interesting and perhaps what style certain critics rely upon in writing their reviews, much to the chagrin of fanboys and director followers.) Also, it's a pet peeve of mine how my little sister claims to know a movie after reading the summary on Wikipedia... the summary and the film are not the same, despite both essentially telling the same plot.
ReplyDeleteIt’s an interesting idea! One issue is that Foucault points out we NEED this fiction of the master artist to guarantee that the work holds together, is superior, is worth analyzing!
Delete